# Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a marketing automation and email marketing platform. "Mailchimp" is the trade name of its operator, Rocket Science Group, an American company founded in 2001 by Ben Chestnut and Mark Armstrong,with Dan Kurzius joining at a later date.

## History

Mailchimp was launched in 2001. The platform was named after one of their most popular e-greetings card characters, earning a few thousand dollars monthly. Mailchimp began as a paid service and added a freemium option in 2009. Within a year, its user base had grown from 85,000 to 450,000. By June 2014, it was sending over 10 billion emails per month on behalf of its users. More than 600 million emails are sent through the platform every two days.
In August 2017, it was reported that Mailchimp would be opening offices in Brooklyn and Oakland, California.
In February 2019, Mailchimp acquired LemonStand, a smaller competitor. Mailchimp later announced its plans to shift from mail distribution to offering a full marketing platform aimed at smaller organizations. This shift includes allowing customers to record and track customer leads within the platform, build landing pages and websites, and run ad retargeting advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. As part of this, Mailchimp acquired the London based media and magazine company Courier Media in March 2020, with the stated goal of international growth. The magazine has a readership of 100,000 readers in more than 26 countries.
With founders Armstrong and Chestnut starting the company without outside funding or plans to go public, and never bringing on any outside investors thereafter, Mailchimp is considered an example of a successfully bootstrapped startup.

### Acquisition by Intuit

After turning down repeated acquisition offers for 20 years, Bloomberg reported on August 31, 2021, that Mailchimp was talking with Intuit about being acquired. On September 13, 2021, Intuit confirmed it would acquire Mailchimp for approximately $12 billion in cash and stock. On November 1, 2021, Intuit officially completed the acquisition for $5.7bn in cash, $6.3bn in common stock, and 573,000 restricted stock units. After the acquisition, Intuit changed the name of the platform to Intuit Mailchimp.

## Marketing campaigns

As a podcast advertiser, Mailchimp sponsored the launch of Serial, a podcast exploring a murder case over multiple episodes.
Another ad became memorable for its inclusion of an unscripted mispronunciation of the company's name – "MailKimp" – as spoken by a 14-year-old girl from Norway waiting in line for an iPhone 6. The ad was parodied and "MailKimp" became a meme. In response, Mailchimp bought the domain name mailkimp.com and redirected traffic to mailchimp.com.
In 2018, Mailchimp underwent a brand redesign to help visually demonstrate an evolution from an email marketing tool to a larger marketing platform. This redesign included an updated logo, color palette, typeface, new imagery, and illustrations. It updated the Mailchimp wordmark to "Mailchimp" rather than "MailChimp" with an uppercase letter "C".

## MailChimp Plans

Mailchimp is a widely used email marketing and automation platform that provides businesses with tools to create, manage, and optimize their marketing campaigns. The platform offers multiple pricing plans tailored to businesses of different sizes, ranging from small startups to large enterprises.

### 1. Free Plan

The Free Plan is designed for individuals and small businesses who are just starting with email marketing. It allows users to manage up to 500 contacts and send up to 2,500 emails per month (with a daily limit of 500 emails). This plan is ideal for those who want to explore Mailchimp's basic features without any financial commitment.

#### Key Features

* Access to basic email templates for quick campaign setup.
* Ability to create landing pages and signup forms to capture leads.
* Single-step automation, such as welcome emails and order confirmations.
* Surveys and basic reporting to track email performance.
However, the Free Plan comes with Mailchimp branding on emails and limited customer support, making it best suited for personal projects or small-scale marketing.

### 2. Essentials Plan

The Essentials Plan is ideal for growing businesses that require additional features, such as email testing, advanced templates, and customer support. Starting at $13 per month for 500 contacts, this plan allows users to send up to 5,000 emails per month, with pricing increasing based on contact count.

#### Key Features

* Includes all Free Plan features, plus access to all Mailchimp templates.
* A/B testing to improve email performance by testing different subject lines or designs.
* Multi-step customer journeys for better automation.
* 24/7 email and live chat support for technical assistance.
This plan is best for businesses looking for a cost-effective marketing solution with automation and testing capabilities.

### 3. Standard Plan

The Standard Plan is a great choice for businesses that need advanced audience insights and more personalized marketing tools. With pricing starting at $20 per month for 500 contacts, this plan allows 6,000 email sends per month. It provides more control over audience segmentation and automation.

#### Key Features

* Includes all Essentials Plan features.
* Custom email templates for branding and personalized marketing.
* Advanced segmentation to send targeted emails based on user behavior.
* Behavioral targeting to engage users based on their activity.
* Send time optimization to increase open rates by delivering emails at the best possible time.
The Standard Plan is perfect for businesses that want better audience segmentation and AI-powered optimization tools.

### 4. Premium Plan

Mailchimp’s Premium Plan is designed for enterprises and marketing teams that require high-volume sending, advanced testing, and dedicated customer support. This plan starts at $350 per month for 10,000 contacts, with up to 150,000 email sends per month.

#### Key Features

* All Standard Plan features plus multivariate testing for detailed campaign experiments.
* Advanced segmentation and predictive analytics for in-depth audience insights.
* Priority customer support, including phone support and dedicated onboarding assistance.
* Unlimited audiences, allowing businesses to manage multiple brands or audience groups from one account.
The Premium Plan is best suited for large businesses that need sophisticated automation, extensive testing, and premium support.

## Transactional email

In February 2016, Mailchimp announced it was merging Mandrill transactional email service into Mailchimp as an add-on feature and gave customers 60 days' notice to switch to the new pricing structure or find an alternative service platform. The new pricing structure required a paid Mailchimp plan before being able to purchase Mandrill credits, resulting in customers paying for two products to access Mandrill.
Previously, customers were able to purchase Mandrill credits for sending emails without signing up on Mailchimp. The credits were originally priced at $9.95 for 25,000 emails but increased to $20 for the same number of emails under the new pricing scheme. In addition to needing to purchase Mandrill credits, customers now need to be on a paid Mailchimp monthly plan (the minimum monthly plan being $10 a month), even if the customer has no need for Mailchimp services and only wants access to Mandrill. Mandrill was later renamed Mailchimp Transactional.

## Data breach

In March 2022, Mailchimp suffered a data breach whereby intruders gained access to the data of 319 of their customers through social engineering. The exposed data includes email address, IP address, and the approximate location of their mailing list recipients.
In January 2023, Mailchimp confirmed another breach of data for 133 accounts via social engineering.